Phoenix 
A Phantasy Star Online fanfiction
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By Scott W Gage

All Phantasy Star characters, creatures and worlds copyright SEGA Enterprises, ltd.

This fanfiction has been downloaded from "The World of WhiteShadow" (http://takeoff.to/WS800) and should only be found there. The author allows this fanfiction to be posted elsewhere,
provided that permission is requested first, at whiteshadow@witty.com Currently this fanfiction is only hosted at the World of WhiteShadow. Please report any misuse of this fanfiction to
the e-mail adress provided. Other than that, enjoy!
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The old leader of the NeiChildren, Zedd, had passed away only six months ago, leaving his oldest daughter Yasmine and her young sister Zara as the figureheads of the dwindling race. They spent their days mingling with the Aiedo populace, passing for Palmans easily, trading their hunted and foraged goods for food and water. It was on one of these forays into the city when the NeiChildren’s world was turned upside down.
The story Yasmine heard after the fact was that Zara and Ceena had taken a usual jaunt into Aiedo, but had done things differently…

Zara, an impetous and headstrong girl, liked to go exploring the city before conducting business. This morning, she had lead Ceena to the Mayor’s residence. Finding a safe spot to spy from, both girls heard a gaggle of scientists berate the mayor about his stance on a certain “Pioneer Project”.
Granted, they had a ll noticed the earthquakes and the seemingly hotter weather lately, but Yasmine and Zara simply put it down to slight malfuncitons in Climatrol and the planet’s plate system, a regular occurrence on Motavia. However, to Zara’s shock the scientist’s spoke of the planet tearing itself apart!
Meaning to find out more, Zara inflitrated the scientific party as they milled around outside the Mayor’s residence. Soon after, they left in a large convoy, out of Aiedo and to the north east. Ceena followed them as far as the outskirts of the city and then rushed back to report to Yasmine.

Although they knew Zara meant only to help, Yasmine still raged momentarily over her sister’s foolhardy decision to go off alone. Packing up quickly, the NeiChildren all followed the trail left by the scientist’s convoy, their rover tracks easy to follow in the desert sands. 
After a solid day’s walk, they reached what appeared to be a quite recently built government installation. Despite the corrosive desert sands everything shined in the hot sun and was heavily guarded.  To keep these many guards alive in the harsh desert, the installation was built near an oasis, thus allowing Yasmine and a hand-picked group of NeiChildren to sneak into the base.
Just as they reached the eastern fenceline, activity erupted from inside the base. Sirens were blaring, lights were flashing and Palmans and androids were running left and right as a low rumble met Yasmine’s sensitive ears. The rumble soon turned to a roar as the ground began to shake. Expecting another earthquake, Yasmine disregarded the noise as she vaulted over the fence to land nimbly on the shaking ground.
What she saw next stunned her as she looked down into an incredibly large shaft that had just opened. It looked like it could swallow four Aiedo’s, and be deep enough to reach the centre of the planet! Suddenly, out of the darkness, a glowing, gigantic spaceship tore into the air. Yasmine fell back as she watched it go, the heat from its jets causing her to sweat profusely. Written on the spaceship’s main body were the words “Pioneer 1”.
Suddenly, Yasmine found a rifle in her face as five army soldiers surrounded her. Casting a look over her shoulder, she saw the rest of her raiding band in a similar predicament. She turned back when a raspy voice addressed her. 
“Oh you shouldn’t worry about them. It’s the twenty or so more of you,” he flicked one of her ears with the barrel of his gun, “freaks that you should be worried about.”
As they were marched at gunpoint into the base, the ground slowly closed again, this time much more gently. As they walked the same soldier, obviously a captain, gloated over Yasmine.
“You’re obviously the leader, so I’ll tell you what trouble you’ve lead your little group into. You genetic mistakes have stumbled onto the biggest government secret this planet will ever see. Y’see, this planet is dying, slowly but surely. It has been ever since Mother Brain was destroyed all those millenia ago. Dezolis too. Both planets are in their death throes as we speak, but the ignorant populace don’t seem to notice, or care.”
Yasmine winced as she recognised her own foolishness. She cursed at herself under her breath.
“So we’re packing up and shipping out to a new planet we’ve discovered. However, we are only taking our best and brightest, ‘cause if we let just anyone on they’d turn our new utopian society into a joke.”
“And instead you just leave them to die?” Yasmine asked acidly as they entered the first of many coldly lit metallic hallways.
The loud crack echoed around the hall as the captain slapped her in the face.
“Don’t talk back to me!” He roared. His face red, the captain calmed himself and began to chuckle. “Oh well, no matter. I’ll punish you enough in time.” They started marching again as the arrogant army man continued;
“It will be at least 6 years until Pioneer 2 is constructed and the second colony leaves for our new home. Until then, you will be incarcerated here to ensure your silence.”
They had arrived at a long line of cells, each one only big enough to accomadate two people. Despite this, and the abundance of cells, they were forced to have five in each, with the males seperated from the females. As their cell doors swung shut, the captain spoke to them one more time.
“And after that? Well, you’re gonna die anyway, so it doesn’t matter what we do with you then… Or what we do with you in the meantime.” His laugh echoed off the walls, leaving the last of the NeiChildren alone, resigned to their fates.
They didn’t see their gaolers again for a week, nor did they see food or water. A resilient race, the NeiChildren spent their days plotting their escape, or theorising over the fate of Zara. The most popular theory was that due to her absence from the cells, Zara must have gone back to Aiedo to tell the others, only to find no one there. No one believed that she might have gotten on board the that ship, abandoning them all. 
The escape plans, on the other hand, were many. The one Yasmine and her cellmates were working hardest on was magically blasting their cell doors with Foi, thus setting off numerous alarms, before blasting their way out the back walls. With the alarms already going off, they would escape long before the guards even realised they’d broken out the back, not the front.
However, it would need to be a synchronised effort to be succesful. After the first ten days of imprisonment, they were finally fed bread and water regularly at noon. Mystified about the sudden change in care, Yasmine instead focussed on memorising the postion of the sun, through the small shaft in the roof, when their food arrived, so she could call out to the other cells in relative safety.

After two weeks of solid eating and planning, Yasmine was satisfied that the plan was understood and might just work. In six days time, at the end of the first month of their imprisonment, they put their plan into effect, escape, head back to Aiedo, find Zara, and then plan their next move.

Yasmine’s first lesson of leadership was that nothing ever goes according to plan.
On the 27th day, two guards supervised by a scientist carried Dee away. No explanation was given, and none was asked for as they took Dee by gunpoint. She would never be heard from again.
Dee’s abduction threw the whole plan into disarray. They couldn’t escape quickly and cleanly if they had to search the base for their missing kinsman. Thinking long and hard, Yasmine asked for two volunteers to accompany her on a rescue mission while the others escaped. Ceena and Laya put their hands up, but the next thing Yasmine suggested was to push the plan back a few days in case they returned Dee to her cell.
The 28th and 29th days passed without incident, but the last day of the month dawned to find the male’s cell invaded by armed guards. Again, they were accompanied by a scientist, who pointed at the youngest male, Sean, before a guard with a shock of white hair pouring out from under his helmet grabbed the boy and dragged him away.
First a female, now a male, Yasmine mused as she worried about her friend. He had cried out only once as they had taken him away, but that cry rang in Yasmine’s ears and brought tears to her eyes.

The shock of losing two of their small number in such a short time had shaken the captive NeiChildren to their core. Morale was at an all time low, as they now spent their days sobbing and mourning their lost friends or relatives. After Sean was taken, each day another NeiChild was kidnapped from their cells. After the fourth day of this, and the NeiChildren’s numbers had dwindled down to nineteen, a commotion erupted at the end of the hall of cells.
Jarred from another night’s lack of sleep, Yasmine rushed to the front of her cell, Ceena and Laya right beside her. Their cell was closest to the end of the hall, but they couldn’t see anything. They did, however, hear gunfire coming closer and closer. Suddenly, the white-haired guard burst around the corner, slipping on the cold steel floor as he charged around the corner. He had lost his helmet, and his long white hair flowed around his head, a sharp contrast to the fresh, jagged cut down the middle of his face. He puffed and sweated as he reached Yasmine’s cell. 
“G, g, get out of here…” He gasped as he fished inside his uniform for the keys. Finding them, his sweaty palms slipped twice before he finally thrust the right key into the lock.
Exploding from the cell, Yasmine grabbed the guard’s shoulders, shaking him like a rag doll.
“Where are the others? Why are you helping us? What’s going on here?”
The guard’s pale face turned even whiter at the barrage of questions.
“Look, there’s not much time, I’ll free your friends, but…” He glanced back down the hall, as the sound of marching feet met their ears. Strangely, it struck Yasmine as the sound of metal upon metal…
“Genetic testing… Your friends that were taken away…” He trailed off and went to open the other cells. As he opened the last, he turned back to the bewildered NeiChildren. “Your friends are dead. I, I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta get out of here… It was so horrible, what they did, I just had to do something…” Looking over the assembled NeiChildren’s heads, the guard screamed and bolted away down the hallway.
Turning, Yasmine saw a large black android round the corner, backed by at least ten red and blue smaller guards, all armed with shotguns. The leader spoke in a monotone as he pointed at the former captives. “They’re escaping. Get them.”
Crying out in rage, Yasmine sent multiple blasts of RaFoi down the hall at the androids. Following suit, the rest of the NeiChildren, putting aside their grief for the moment, sent their own magical attacks down the hallway. Noting the lack of return fire, Yasmine reasoned that they might have at least stunned the androids for now. “Let’s go! Split up and get out of the base! I’ll see you all back in Aiedo, safe and sound - now get out of here!”
Firing one more blast of NaFoi down the hall, Yasmine dashed after her fleeing clan. As she passed some cells, she noticed other prisoners, and stopped to set them free. Half the time, the prisoners simply barreled out of their cells without a backward glance, but one young man, with strange violet eyes, stopped momentarily, smiled at Yasmine, and flung a blast of RaZonde down the hall before running away. Reaching the end of the hallway, Yasmine panicked momentarily at the choice of four directions. Choosing the leftmost hallway, she aimed one last RaFoi spell at the ceiling, causing it to cave in behind her.
Moments later, Yasmine cursed her luck. This hall was empty of any other escapees, but seemed to lead directly into the base’s laboratories. With no way back, Yasmine resolved herself to finding out exactly what happened to her friends before she herself escaped. Just as she approached the first electronic door, sirens began to go off all around her. The lights in the hall changed from white to red as a cold electronic voice echoed the words; “Escapees located in corridor C3. Commence capture.”
Yasmine stood, dumbfounded, for a moment. Not my people… Not now! Disregarding such thoughts, she entered the lab to find herself faced with a bank of computer screens. Probably due to the dangerous prisoners loose in the base, the lab was empty. The computer screens in front of her showed different areas of the base. One of them showed the corridor she herself had blocked off, as the group of androids fired constantly upon it. Another camera showed what appeared to be an entrance to a ship. The date on it, however, appeared to be from a month ago. Seemingly hundreds of people filed onto the ship, many armed. However Yasmine nearly fell off her chair as she saw Zara being marched onto the ship at the end of a rifle. 
Yasmine was confused. Why the difference? Why imprison them and yet let Zara go with them? Something stank here, Yasmine realised, so she began flicking through the various cameras to see what else she could find. One camera showed the white-haired guard had paired up with the violet-eyed spellcaster and both were belting down an otherwise empty hall. 
On another camera was the laboratory area. Flicking past the view of herself at the console, Yasmine nearly vomited at the next sight. Laid out on a table was Sean, dead. Strewn around him were medical instruments of varying cruelty. Blood stained his clothing and bare parts of his body were covered with scars. Flicking through the various other labs, Yasmine saw similar fates for the other abducted NeiChildren. Pale with rage, she saw gunfire on another screen.
In it, she saw the NeiChildren, all still in a group, backed up against a wall. The androids had broken through the blockade, and had them covered. Stepping forward, the leader said something, before the screen filled with the most horrible sight Yasmine had ever seen.
Sobbing quietly, Yasmine sank to the floor in a heap, defeated. The destruction of all her family and friends left her an emotional wreck on the floor. Their lives flashed before her eyes as she cried in the foetal position. She didn’t know she fainted or fell asleep but the next thing she knew was the metallic voice calling out;
“Escapees neutralized. Emergency averted. Status: green.”
Getting to her feet, Yasmine wiped the tears and mucus from her face, composing herself as the gravity of the situation settled upon her yet again.
All her family and friends were dead.
Zara was being held captive somewhere.
The planet was going to die.
She was going to die if she didn’t do something.
“Dangerous escapee detected in Lab area. Proceed with neutralization. Status: red.”
Yasmine ran out of the lab, heading away from the cells, towards the heart of the base, and towards the spaceship. She wasn’t going to die. Neither was Zara. The NeiChildren [B]weren’t going to die.[/B] Not today. Not ever, if she had anything to do with it. And those army men were going to pay, dearly. But first she had to find her sister, and that meant getting onto that ship, whenever they finished it.
As she moved through the base at breakneck speed, she realised that this Pioneer 2 must have been the sole focus of their work at the moment. The base was deserted. How many millions were they going to leave behind to perish because they had been deemed not good enough? Nobody’s bad enough to be denied life, she thought to herself. To be denied a chance.
As she reached the the front gates of the compound, she realised that they were imprisoned but a short walking distance from it. The twisting corridors had simply led them to the illusion that they were deep inside the base.  Probably to demoralise them further. She shook such thoughts away as she saw the unguarded gate of the base. Obviously, the threat was usually from without, not within. It was closed, locked. A keypad was at its side, but she had no idea of the code. Suddenly behind her, she heard the same metal upon metal footsteps of the androids approaching. Surely she hadn’t been discovered? Biting her lip, she sent a small charge of electircity into the keypad with a Zonde spell. The doors swung upon with a sigh, and she relaxed for a moment.
There was noone guarding the outside gate either. What was going on here?
About to step outside to freedom, Yasmine realised that the androids must have been cleared this area to prevent casualties from the “dangerous escapees”.  Her blood boiling, she turned, to see the black leader, covered in blood, approaching her. His subordinates were nowhere to be seen. Just as she saw the android, he saw her, raising the shotgun in his hand to aim directly at her.
“Halt.” Was all he said.
Yasmine looked at the nameplate welded onto the android’s chest. She would know the name of this murderer, she decided. Semiru.
Reacting quickly, Yasmine fired a bolt of GiZonde directly into the tip of the shotgun. The electrical charge took mere moments to work its way through the android’s complete body, leaving him convulsing on the floor.
Turning away from the murderous android, Yasmine stepped outside the gate to freedom. She would go back to Aiedo, hole up, plan and train. And she would return in 6 years time to go get her sister. She would do it for all of them.
For all the NeiChildren.